Identifying active ingredients of narrative intervention that are influential to children's language growt

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to identify active ingredients of narrative intervention that are influential to kindergarten students' language growth. Method: Twenty-nine kindergarten students from two classrooms were assigned to a treatment group or an alternate treatment group. Fourteen students from a separate classroom were assigned to a control group. Using the language intervention curriculum Story Champs Blitz(c), classroom teachers of the treatment groups conducted 12 intervention sessions (240 min) over 3 weeks. The treatment group received narrative intervention with visual scaffolds and the alternate treatment group received narrative intervention without any visual scaffolds. Students in the control group participated in standard curriculum activities. All participants were administered pretest and posttest assessments of narrative retells and personal story generations. Results: Posttest results indicated that students in both treatment groups outperformed students in the control group on narrative retelling and story generation. Results also indicated that there was no significant difference between the two treatment groups on both measures. Conclusion: The results of the study suggest that narrative intervention is efficacious for the outcomes measured, and that visual scaffolds may not be active ingredients of the intervention. It is probable that repeated narrative retelling may be an active ingredient since it was a common intervention feature across both treatment approaches. Future research should determine the importance of visual scaffolds on students' engagement and participation in narrative intervention, and examine its effect on generalization and long-term maintenance of language outcomes.